How could a community of 2000-3000 Viking peasants survive in Arctic Greenland for 430 years (ca. 985-1415), and why did they finally disappear? European agriculture in an Arctic environment encountered serious ecological challenges. The Norse peasants faced these challenges by adapting agricultural practices they had learned from the Atlantic and North Sea coast of Norway. Norse Greenland was the stepping stone for the Europeans who first discovered America and settled briefly in Newfoundland ca. AD 1000. The community had a global significance which surpassed its modest size. In the last decades scholars have been nearly unanimous in emphasising that long-term climatic and environmental changes created a situation where Norse agriculture was no longer sustainable and the community was ruined. A secondary hypothesis has focused on ethnic confrontations between Norse peasants and Inuit hunters. In the last decades ethnic violence has been on the rise in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and parts of Africa. In some cases it has degenerated into ethnic cleansing. This has strengthened the interest in ethnic violence in past societies. Challenging traditional hypotheses is a source of progress in all science. The present book does this on the basis of relevant written and archaeological material respecting the methodology of both sciences.

How could a community of 2000-3000 Viking peasants survive in Arctic Greenland for 430 years (ca. 985-1415), and why did they finally disappear? European agriculture in an Arctic environment encountered serious ecological challenges. The Norse peasants faced these challenges by adapting agricultural practices they had learned from the Atlantic and North Sea coast of Norway. Norse Greenland was the stepping stone for the Europeans who first discovered America and settled briefly in Newfoundland ca. AD 1000. The community had a global significance which surpassed its modest size. In the last decades scholars have been nearly unanimous in emphasising that long-term climatic and environmental changes created a situation where Norse agriculture was no longer sustainable and the community was ruined. A secondary hypothesis has focused on ethnic confrontations between Norse peasants and Inuit hunters. In the last decades ethnic violence has been on the rise in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and parts of Africa. In some cases it has degenerated into ethnic cleansing. This has strengthened the interest in ethnic violence in past societies. Challenging traditional hypotheses is a source of progress in all science. The present book does this on the basis of relevant written and archaeological material respecting the methodology of both sciences.

Between 1000 and 1536 Scandinavia was transformed from a conglomerate of largely pre-state societies to societies characterized by state governments. Its most important single aspect was the increasing monopolization of 'legitimate' violence by the state. But Church and State also used literacy to strengthen social control, and they did so in central and important areas: jurisdiction, religious conformity and accounting. Thus, they hoped to control the areas they understood to be most important. Their intentions were largely fulfilled. The main driving force behind the transition to state societies was the monopolization of legitimate violence, but the use of literacy made a difference as well. By writing down oral 'laws', and by increasingly resorting to writing in traditionally oral judicial procedures, the state gradually gained control of institutionalized social practices with a minimum of 'legitimate violence'. Written laws made social norms more precise and easier to change, a necessity in an increasingly complex society. Writing also strengthened social cohesion by creating common religious rituals, procedures and narratives. Written accounts made taxation more stable and therefore seem more just and acceptable. The basic social transformations of the period cannot be attributed to increasing literacy alone. But the written word rendered the reorganization of society in Scandinavia more peaceful and gradual, strengthened social conformity and cohesion.

With insightful readings of his source material - which includes Norse sagas, Eddic literature and church homilies - Arnved Nedkvitne sheds light on the complex and diversified nature of lay belief in medieval Norse society. One of the study's main claims suggests that laypeople had a firm belief in life after death - with all central rituals and beliefs seen as a means to this end. Yet, laypeople also had greater latitude in choosing between a sacred or secular understanding of their everyday lives than is often assumed: while religion was a fundamental source of norms, values and concepts at the time, laypeople also had to relate to state laws, codes of honour upheld by the local community and their own material interests. Lay Belief in Norse Society 1000-1350 offers a comprehensive treatment of the diffusion of strains related to the subject at hand: from orthodox rituals to remnants of pagan religion, from Christian ethics to secular honour. Combining a powerful and lucid exploration of his material with astute methodological awareness, Arnved Nedkvitne paints a vivid picture of the religious and cultural landscape of medieval Norse society.